Continuity mistake: In the bar before the crew go on their fatal mission, Mark Walberg's character is drinking with his girlfriend. His goatee is thick and dark around his chin. When they are upstairs in their bedroom later that night, it is very light and slight. The next morning, when he is leaving to get on the boat and saying goodbye to her, it is thick and dark at the bottom again. (00:15:00 - 00:16:10)
Continuity mistake: When the crew all are in the bar, Bobby Shatford gives the boy of one of his shipmates his hat before following his girlfriend upstairs. The next morning, he comes down the stairs wearing the same hat. (00:15:50 - 00:21:20)
Continuity mistake: The note from Chris to Bobby includes a section which reads "pillows I secretly bought at Penny's." In Chris's voice over, she says "pillows that I secretly bought for us at Penny's." (00:34:30)
Continuity mistake: When the crew pull the hook out of the man's hand, he puts a spoon in his mouth - its facing right, but when he's done it's facing left. (00:55:15)
Continuity mistake: When the Sea Hawk Helicopter ditches into the sea, the pilot's night vision goggles fall off yet as the cockpit starts to fill with water they are still there and remain there for several scenes. (01:33:25)
Continuity mistake: During the storm when the Andrea Gail is making its way through the numerous giant waves, we see Captain Billy Tyne and Bobby Shatford in the steering room being soaked and smashed around as the boat was basically going straight up and then straight down crashing into the water over and over again. Yet when the camera cut to the crew below, they are all sitting very calmly in their chairs or bunks with cups of coffee and other things sitting perfectly still on the table (which goes against the nailed down TV theory). It looks as if they are not even on a boat. Practically nothing in the whole room is moving. (01:45:00)
Continuity mistake: As the Coast Guard cutter is making the second attempt to rescue the helicopter pilot and the injured para-rescuer, in one overhead shot we see the crew on the foredeck holding the cargo net. After the two men are swept off the net, another shot shows the foredeck empty, though the ship's crew is still at the cargo net attempting the rescue.
Continuity mistake: When the weather forecaster is showing the woman what would happen if the storms collided, we see a third person shot of him pointing to the computer screen with just his middle finger. The next shot (which takes place at the exact same time) is a shot from the guy's perspective. Now he's using both his middle finger AND his pointer to show her the storms.
Continuity mistake: Irene closes her umbrella twice. Once when she arrives at the Crows Nest and again after she enters.
Continuity mistake: In the scene after the helicopter goes down and the captain swims to the injured rescue diver, when the camera first shows the injured diver, he doesn't have a bloody mouth. But when the camera cuts to the captain and then cuts back to the injured rescue diver, he then has blood coming out of his mouth.
Answer: Not a ship captain, but will take a shot. If a massive wave is close to cresting, as I seem to recall in this scene, the boat would have to climb a near vertical wall of water and would likely be flipped back and upside down by the advancing wave. Perhaps he was planning to gun the engine to penetrate the wall of the wave, and bob to the surface after it passed. Reversing the engine would just let the thousands of tons of water in the breaking wave smash down on the boat, crushing it.